Decalogue 7 - AHB

"Thou Shalt Not Steal"

Decalogue 7 dealt with some interesting topics that definitely leave you in a kind of moral gray area. Again, I think that Kieslowski succeeded in working through an interpretation of the commandment without explicitly stating a particular position.

A lot is going on in this episode beyond the basic storyline. I think a key facet is education. Who is responsible for raising a child, and should that responsibility be shifted. It's naive to say that a woman simply has a natural right to raise her child. Too many mother's are tragic examples of bad parenting, and should never have such a responsibility. However, it seems like there should also be a pretty powerful motivator in order to remove a child from its mother. Plato ruffles some feathers when he suggests in the Republic that all children should be taken from their parents because everyone is fundamentally unfit to raise a child. Once you start going down that road it is hard to know where to draw the line, and since the child cannot decide for herself someone will always be making that choice for her.

Another interesting part of the movie is the way it deals with perception. Majka(?) would never have been satisfied living with her daughter at home because the girl's perception of her mother would always be fixed on her grandmother. Even after the old bird died she would still be mother to both the girls. Watching this part of the film was really interesting. Even if the two had successfully run away to Kanada, this problem of perception would have always existed. This also ties back into the first point. Does it matter who is the mother of a child and whether or not the child knows who her mother is?

The mother in this episode is really offensive. It seems like her love of the little girl is partially a way of covering up her mistakes with her older daughter.

I like the end of this episode. I think Majka did the only thing that she could do, and maybe she realized that the child's needs were more important than her own.